California Biographies
Source:
History of Napa and Lake Counties
San Francisco, Slocum, Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1881
Transcribed by Peggy Hooper 2011
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
COLONEL J. P. JACKSON. Colonel Jackson, whose portrait appears in the body of this work, is an
Ohioan. The first fourteen years of his life were passed in the beautiful city of Cleveland, and the next
twenty-one years in Cincinnati, where he practiced law for fifteen years. In his profession he was
successful, and achieved high honors. This, too, at a bar that numbered among its practitioners whom
he daily met in regular forensic rivalry the historic names of R B. Hayes, George E. Pugh, George H.
Pendleton, Alphonso Taft, Milton Sayler, Stanley Matthews and Edward F. Noyes. In 1862, he served
with the Army of the Cumberland, under Rosecrans and Buell; and from Pittsburg Landing to Corinth, a
detached service, under Grant. He went to Europe in 1867 to negotiate the bonds of the California
Pacific Railroad Company, and this service resulted in his moving to the Golden State, where he aided
in building the road named, and remained its President until it was bought by the Central Pacific
Company. He then personally built the Stockton and Copperopolis Railroad and the Stockton and
Visalia branch, until it, in like manner, became by sale the property of the Central Finding no further
territory in the State that would justify in venture, he then turned his attention from railroading to
other channels of business. From his earliest boyhood he has been prominent as a public speaker. At
the age of nineteen he represented the young men of Cincinnati in the presentation of a purse of
money which he accompanied by a most happy original speech. As an elector for Lincoln and Johnson,
he stumped the States of Kentucky, Southern Ohio and Indiana, and afterwards did the same service
for Grant and Colfax, speaking often in company with Grant's father, Schuyler Colfax and John
Sherman. His speeches in California in the Republican cause confirmed his Eastern reputation as an
eloquent orator, and one of his efforts in a late canvass was made a campaign document by the State
Central Committee. A specimen of his style is afforded by his speech on the occasion of a banquet to
John Russell Young, given by the journalists of San Francisco, at which was present Generals Grant,
McDowell, Kautz and others of the military, and representatives in full of the local press. It will pass as
a model of post-prandial felicity in speech. Notwithstanding his great interest in politics, Colonel
Jackson has always eschewed official life. He has found his chosen sphere of happiness in active
business, home life and with his books. He has six sons, two of whom are nearly ready to graduate
from college, one at Amherst, Massachusetts, and the other in Harvard University. In 1864 Colonel
Jackson received the unanimous nomination of the Republican party for Governor of Kentucky, and
afterwards declined to go as Congressman from the Sixth District of that State, when his nomination
was equivalent to an election. Near the close of Andrew Johnson's term his friends pressed upon him
the Commissionership of Internal Revenue, but he refused the appointment and subsequently
declined the position of First Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Grant. Turning his attention to
journalism, he found the Daily Evening Post not much larger than a good-sized sheet of paper; but,
taking charge of it, in less than five years he has twice enlarged its size, changed its politics from
Democratic to Republican, and made it a recognized power in the journalistic field. As an authority
upon and defender of mining interests it exercises an influence unequalled by any other Pacific Coast
journal The career of the Post under Colonel Jackson's charge is the most conspicuous journalistic
success in San Francisco. To meet the increased demands of its patrons a new press has been made by
the Bullock Lightning Press Company, Philadelphia. While managing the entire business of the paper
and many other varied interests as well, he writes very largely the editorial column and wields a ready
and able pen. Ideality and causality are both leading qualities of his temperament, and hence a poetic
imagination is happily supplemented by logical reason. This makes his writing both engaging and
convincing. In 1872 he became the proprietor of the Napa Soda Springs, and is now giving great
attention to the improvement of that property, expending large sums of money annually for that
purpose. In 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Colonel Jackson was united in marriage with Miss Anna Hooper, a
native of Kentucky. They have nine children, seven sons and two daughters, five of whom were born
in Kentucky and the remaining four in California.